• This week’s challenge: Rock’em Sock’em Rookies
  Heath Slater defeated David Otunga
  Skip Sheffield defeated Wade Barrett
  Daniel Bryan defeated Michael Tarver
  Darren Young defeated Justin Gabriel vs.

• Justin Gabriel (w/ Matt Hardy) defeated David Otunga (w/ R-Truth)

• Rock’em Sock’em semi-finals
  Skip Sheffield defeated Heath Slater
  Darren Young defeated Daniel Bryan

• Darren Young defeated Skip Sheffield & Michael Tarver

• Rock’em Sock’em Finals
  Skip Sheffield defeated Darren Young
  Rematch: Skip Sheffield defeated Darren Young

• Heath Slater defeated Chris Jericho (w/ Wade Barrett)

Notes: NXT kicked off with a crappy version of American Gladiators challenge called Rock’em Sock’em Rookies. This was unfortunate to watch, but a good thing the segment was short.

Justin Gabriel (w/ Matt Hardy) vs. David Otunga (w/ R-Truth)

Justin Gabriel defeated Otunga with a roll up. Didn’t care to much for the match itself. Otunga was all over Gabriel in the beginning. Gabriel was like the underdog of the match.

Carlito came out with his NXT Rookie, Michael Tarver. He said that he didn’t care about the challenges and he didn’t need anything to prove himself. He was tired of getting looked over and was asking for a fight. Skip Sheffield answered the call. The Straight Edge Society came out right afterward followed by Darren Young. CM Punk claimed that Darren Young was ready for some competition.

Skip Sheffield vs. Darren Young vs. Michael Tarver

Tarver and Young go back and forth. Young throws Tarver over the rope and becomes the only man in the ring. Cut to commercial. When we come back to commercial, Sheffield and Tarver are dominating over Young. Sheffield gives Young a german suplex and goes for the cover. Tarver interupts Sheffield and then covers Young. Tarver and Sheffield argue. Later on in the match, Darren Young makes it to the top turnbuckle. Luke Gallows runs in and pushes Young over and then goes over to elbow Sheffield. Gallows points to Tarver to take advantage of the situation. Tarver goes for it, but Young counters and goes for the pin. Young wins the match despite Luke Gallows interference.

Skip Sheffield won the Rock’em Sock’em competition. The first part of the competition had a tie between Sheffield and Young because it seems that both Rookies went down at the same time.

Chris Jericho slapped Slater at the start of the match. Heath seemed to hold his own against the former World Heavyweight Champion. He always seemed to rise to the occasion. Jericho was going for the walls of Jericho, instead Slater rolled up Jericho for a win. Jericho was furious after the match and threw a hissy fit. Went around the ring to the announcers table to take it apart. He threw chairs around. He called the referee stupid.

I like NXT. I like that I get to watch a hour wrestling show that is all about wrestling. I like that a former World Heavyweight Champion Chris Jericho can get into a the ring with a newbie like Heath Slater. However, NXT has to stop producing crappy challenges. If they really want to capture an audience, they really need to give real actual challenges. Something that looks hard…not stick challenges.

What did you think of this episode of WWE NXT? Leave a comment below.

• This week’s challenge: A joust
  Heath Slater vs. David Otunga
  Wade Barrett vs. Skip Sheffield
  Daniel Bryan vs. Michael Tarver
  Justin Gabriel vs. Darren Young

• Justin Gabriel vs. David Otunga

• Skip Sheffield vs. Heath Slater

• Daniel Bryan vs. Darren Young

• Skip Sheffield vs. Darren Young

• Chris Jericho vs. Heath Slater

• Christian (w/ Heath Slater) defeated Wade Barrett (w/ Chris Jericho)

• William Regal (w/ Skip Sheffield) defeated Daniel Bryan (w/ The Miz)

• Darren Young defeated Luke Gallows


Notes: Matt Striker interviewed the WWE Rookies. David “A-List” Otunga praised his ability to wrestle the WWE champion even though he lost. Justin Gabriel was a little bit modest in his answer. He said that give him a match with John Cena and wait and see who wins. Striker announced that the Rookies would have to speak on a topic for thirty seconds and the most creative would receive their own theme music. Daniel Bryan did terrible in talking about passion. He spoke about the Daniel Bryan manliness meter. Striker interrupted him. Daniel ended praising England. Wade Barrett spoke about blase and knocked it out of the park. Justin Gabriel sucked at flowers. Heath Slater spoke about cereal. David “A-list” Otunga spoke about sleep. The crowd was boing like crazy. Skip Sheffield’s topic was raindows, but didn’t mention it. Tarver’s topic was itchy and didn’t even open his mouth. Darren Young’s topic was toothpaste. He began insulting the Brits for not using toothpaste and lightened up the atmosphere a bit. Skip and Wade had a talk off, afterward. Wade Barrett won the segment, but it was an absolutely terrible opening segment. Please, bring back the keg race.

Wade Barrett vs. Christian

Chris Jericho supported his Rookie ringside by verbally praising him ringside with the commentary table. Wade Barrett was impressive in his match against Christian. It was obvious that Christian was doing his best to put Barrett over. Christian was able to put the kill switch on Barrett with the help of his rookie, Heath Slater. Christian wins the match and celebrates the win with Slater.

The Miz berates Bryan Daniel over his lack of charisma. He said that just because he was rated number one by the Pros, he shouldn’t feel safe. The Miz continued to say that he should get his charisma into Daniel Bryan. He also called him the Susan Boyle of the WWE.

William Regal (w/ Skip Sheffield) vs. Daniel Bryan (w/ The Miz)

The match lasted only a few minutes. Daniel Bryan suffered another defeat from William Regal. Afterward, The Miz gave Bryan a beating for not getting a win. Dammit! Why can’t Bryan get a win?

Darren Young vs. Luke Gallows

Luke Gallows dominates at the beginning of the match with a few punches to Young’s face. Gallows slams Young’s body on the Matt. However, it seems that Darren Young gets a lucky break by rolling up Luke Gallows. CM Punk gets into the ring and lifts his rookies hand in celebration. Luke Gallows looked surprised. CM Punk looked disappointed at Luke as he left the ring with Serena hand in hand.

Overall, I liked this episode. It started off poorly, but the rest of the episode was entertaining. However, I am not liking Daniel Bryan’s losing streak. I understand they are trying to build sympathy for him, but the streak is really annoying me. Daniel Bryan is a great technical wrestler. Can’t he get at least one win?

What did you think of this episode of WWE NXT? Leave a comment below.

• Wade Barrett vs. Christian

• William Regal vs. Daniel Bryan

• Darren Young vs. Luke Gallows

• Daniel Bryan vs. Darren Young

• Justin Gabriel vs. Michael Tarver

• Wade Barrett vs. David “A-List” Otunga

• Heath Slater vs. Kane

• World Heavyweight Championship Match
  Jack Swagger defeated Chris Jericho

• R-Truth & John Morrison defeated Cryme Tyme

• Drew McIntyre (c) vs. Matt Hardy – Match ended before it stared

• Dolph Ziggler defeated The Great Khali

• Tiffany & Beth Phoenix defeated Michelle McCool & Layla (w/ Vickie Guerrero)

• Kane vs. NXT Rookies – DQ
  Kane eliminates Justin Gabriel
  Kane eliminates Heath Slater

Notes: Smackdown opened with Chris Jericho celebrating his win at WrestleMania. He compared Edge to the Smackdown crowd and calling them genetically inferior. He talked about Edge trying to permanently injure him with a spear on the announce table.  He expresses his disgust and calls the crowd losers. Edge comes out to get into Jericho’s face. Edge said that he is like the crowd in that they enjoy Jericho getting speared. Edge asked for a rematch. Jericho blew him off saying that he should go to the back of the line and get out of the ring. Edge exploded by stripping Jericho of his cloths, exposing his taped ribs, and spearing him.

Out comes Jack Swagger to take advantage of the situation. He demands a referee to cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase. The referee took a while to get the match started, but soon enough Swagger put on the Swagger bomb and won the World Heavyweight Championship. Congrats to Jack Swagger.

Highlights: Shad Gaspard turned on his Cryme Tyme partner after a loss to R-Truth and John Morrison. In an interview with Josh Matthews, Shad said it was his time now.

Drew McIntyre beat the crap out of Matt Hardy before the match even started. McIntyre stood over Hardy’s body when he was over. Well, that one way to eliminate an opponent.

Dolph Ziggler defeated The Great Khali with a sleeper hold. The Great Khali had a revelation and announced to the crowd in his native language that he would go back home to his family for a period of time. When he returned, he would become the World Heavyweight Championship. My goodness. Please, let it not be true.

CM Punk offered his hair in a rematch with Rey Mysterio. He delivered a great promo…actually the Straight-Edge Society delivered a promo praising Punk. They went on to criticize Las Vegas as the place to get booze 24/7. The crowd cheered. Dammit! Don’t they know booze is bad for them.

Beth Phoenix carried the tag team match where she teamed up with Tiffany to face Lay-Cool. Phoenix had a good crowd reaction when she came out with her theme music and when she won the match.

Kane came out to declare that he was bored and frustrated and wanted to take his frustrations out on the NXT Rookies. Kane seemed to be on top of things by elimanating Rookie after Rookie. Then, the NXT Rookies huddled together and decided to gang up on Kane. The referee had to sound the bell as ganging up was illegal. Rookies kept kicking Kane as he was down and tried to dominate him. I feel that this isn’t over.

Ending: Jack Swagger addressed the WWE Universe by reading off of a prepared statement. Chris Jericho came out and demanded that Swagger give back the title. Swagger refused. Edge came out to convince Swagger to give him a title match instead of Jericho. He understood why he cashed in and praised him. Edge credited himself with Swagger’s win and made his case for a title match. Teddy Long came out to settle the issue by arranging a match between the two championship hopefuls. The winner would face Swagger for the title.

Post-WrestleMania Smackdown ended up being a good episode. I enjoyed watching the Divas match…which says a lot. It was a good to see Dolph Ziggler getting his push once more. I happy to see Jack Swagger get a huge push, but I do think it is very early to allow him to win the World Heavyweight Championship. However, I wish him luck and a long title reign.

What did you think of this episode of WWE Smackdown? Leave a comment below.

• Faces:
  Matt Hardy will be mentoring Justin Gabriel
  MVP will be mentoring Skip Sheffield
  Christian will be mentoring Heath Slater
  R-Truth will be mentoring David Otunga

• Heel:
  Chris Jericho will be mentoring Wade Barrett
  Carlito will be mentoring Michael Tarver
  The Miz will be mentoring Daniel Bryan (aka Bryan Danielson)
  CM Punk will be mentoring Darren Young

“NXT” will debut on Tuesday, February 23^rd at 10 pm ET on the Syfy channel.

Go to WWE.com for more information about “NXT”.

• Unified Tag Team Championship Match
  Show-Miz (The Big Show & The Miz) (c) defeated Yoshi Tatsu & Goldust

• ECW Championship Match
  Ezekiel Jackson (w/ William Regal) (c) defeated Christian

Notes: The final episode of WWE’s ECW started off with the Unified Tag Team Championship Match. The Miz and The Big Show are ECW alumni and made sense to have them on the final show. They faced fan favorite Yoshi Tatsu and Goldust. Yoshi got crushed by The Big Show. Goldust was pinned by The Miz. The strange duo had no chance against The Show-Miz.

Six cast members of NXT was revealed featuring three “Pros” and three “Rookies”. Chris Jericho will mentor Wade Barrett, Matt Hardy mentoring Justin Gabriel, and MVP mentoring Skip Sheffield.

The Abraham Washington made its last appearance on ECW. He plugged NXT for a short time while Tony Atlas chuckled his way through the monologue. Abraham Washington introduced himself as his own final guest and described himself as the biggest name in the company. Shelton Benjamin came out to burst Abraham’s bubble. Vance Archer followed along with Caylen Croft, Trent Baretta, and Vladimir Kozlov. A short fight broke out with Shelton Benjamin making friends with Kozlov.

Carlito is revealed to be a mentor to Michael Tarver.

The Miz is revealed to be a mentor to Daniel Bryan … aka Bryan Danielson. This is wrong on so many levels.

Christian will be mentoring Heath Slater.

Christian came out to make his final speech. He spoke about being proud of being apart of the brand and working with some of the younger talent like Yoshi Tatsu. He thanked the fans and said that he was glad to be the last ECW champion.

CM Punk is mentoring Darren Young.

Ezekiel Jackson (w/ William Regal)  came out to face Christian one last time for the ECW Championship. Rosa Mendes runs in to slap Christian around. Tiffany runs in and spears Rosa. Tiffany, in her absolute fierceness, kicked Rosa’s ass. I didn’t know Tiffany had it in her! The match continued under extreme rules. Trash cans, tables, and various inanimate objects were used throughout the match. It seemed Christian might have injured his left leg, but he continued the match. William Regal interfered, but Christian countered by almost putting on the kill switch. Ezekiel Jackson took advantage and put Christian through the table and went for the pin. Ezekiel Jackson became the last ECW Champion. Yeah, good luck with that Championship that will absolutely nothing from now on.

R-Truth is announced to be mentoring Jennifer Hudson’s fiance David Otunga.

I have mixed feelings about the end of WWE’s ECW. I’m mostly happy that this is ending. However, it was nice to have a programming that was simply wrestling every week. Let’s face it. WWE’s ECW was nothing like the original. It simply introduced new talent to the WWE. This brand introduced to us CM Punk and brought us the great tag team of Miz and Morrison. I am looking forward to “NXT”, because it is another outlet to introduce brand new talent.

What did you think of the final episode of WWE’s ECW? Leave a comment below.